Johnson: Del Taco steps up for grieving family

Marc and Corina Buhler of Rancho Santa Margarita, lost their 23-year-old son, Tristan Buhler, to a brain aneurysm on January 22, 2013. Del Taco, where Tristan had worked for six years, stepped up and covered the funeral costs for the Buhler family. The couple has no other children and organized their lives around Tristan. "My heart is empty," said Corina, "He was our whole world." MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Correction

A previous version of this story had the incorrect date of Tristan Buhler's death. It has been corrected.

The corporation would never put out a press release, go on TV or much less say a word about this. It is just a part of the beauty of this story.

We will pick it up in the tiny Rancho Santa Margarita apartment where Marc and Corina Buhler live. They had one son, Tristan Allen Anthony Buhler. He was 23.

Corina shows me soon after I arrive the sofa she and Marc bought only awhile ago. It has recliners in it, she explains, which was perfect since it would keep Tristan from stealing his father's big recliner when he would come over to watch football or mixed martial arts on TV with his dad.

He loved his parents. When Tristan married Jessica in October 2011, they moved into an apartment a building over. And on that horrible night late last month, the last thing he said to Jessica was to please call his dad.

"Even as he was dying," his father said, "he knew he could always rely on us."

For a full week, Corina, 44, and Marc, 52, would sit from sunup to sundown reading to their boy books that were his favorites from childhood.

"I didn't want him to hear the beeping," Corina said.

Tristan had suffered a brain aneurysm. The doctors told them he was born with it, that at least they had gotten nearly 24 years with their son before it burst.

Those first few days, Corina and Marc prayed hard. Tristan had been born premature at Mission Hospital in Mission Viejo where he was lying now, and the doctors saved him. Couldn't they do the same for her boy just one more time?

The nurses on the floor fought valiantly for her son, she said, bathing him, combing his hair, brushing his teeth and crying with them, even when they knew the end was fast approaching.

On Jan. 29, they prepped Tristan Buhler for surgery. Marc and Corina had agreed to end their son's life support that day. Surgeons, in line with the man's wishes, would harvest both kidneys and corneas. In the hospital that day were two patients who would die without transplants.

"He will live on," Corina said. "If we can save another family from what we have gone through, it is all well worth it."

They thought they knew everything about their son. On the day they agreed to allow people to come to the hospital to say goodbye to Tristan, a funny thing happened.

Hundreds of people showed, including Paul Murphy, chief executive officer of Del Taco, the Lake Forest-based restaurant chain where Tristan, a quality assurance inspector, had worked for six years. Murphy would visit twice. Indeed, so many people came that the company dispatched its human resources officer to schedule the visits.

Marc and Corina Buhler of Rancho Santa Margarita, lost their 23-year-old son, Tristan Buhler, to a brain aneurysm on January 22, 2013. Del Taco, where Tristan had worked for six years, stepped up and covered the funeral costs for the Buhler family. The couple has no other children and organized their lives around Tristan. "My heart is empty," said Corina, "He was our whole world." MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Marc and Corina Buhler, kept their late son, Tristan Buhler, 23, on life support for an entire week before making the difficult decision to let him pass on. MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Tristan Buhler, 23, used to favor this seat on his family's couch when he came to visit his parents at their Rancho Santa Margarita home. Corina Buhler bought this couch specifically because she knew how much her son liked recliners. The couple has no other children and had organized their lives around Tristan. "My heart is empty," said Corinna, "He was our whole world." MACKENZIE REISS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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